In the Spring of 1917, many French army units mutinied after enduring years of slaughter and appalling conditions during World War One. Much of the French army on the Western Front was affected. Hear first-hand accounts of the mutiny from the BBC archive.
Link https://youtu.be/-XrU9Pdbc54
Mutiny
World Service with me Alex Last. And as part of our centenary series on the
First World War, using archived recordings we go back to the spring of 1917
when the French army was rocked by mutiny.
mutiny a long time before 1917. They had had absolutely appalling losses, due
largely you know to mistakes and to mistaken theories.
British military mission to the French Government.
the French army attacking German positions and machine guns with bands playing
and officers in white gloves leading them in. they went on suffering terrible
losses, still they endured displaying qualities of stoicism and staying power
which we really thought only we were capable of.
more had been wounded, all in less than three years of war. Most had fought and
died in seemingly hopeless battles of attrition on the western front, and even
if they survived the big offensives, life in the trenches could be truly grim.
the front lines every few days, the French did not. Troops stayed in the
morass, rest was short, leave often cancelled. On April the 16th
1917 the French commander General Nivelle launched yet another massive
offensive. In a message to his troops he boasted he knew the formula for victory
and wrote to them of the need for sacrifice.
at all.
French soldier.
only a terrible menace, more suffering, great danger, a frightful death, a
useless sacrifice totally in vain. No one had any confidence in this new round
of killing leading to any useful result.
Le Chemin de Dames, the French attack went wrong from the start.
Germans. He knew exactly the date, even the hour of the French attack. The whistle
went and we attacked, I was in the second line, in the few minutes after the
attack was launched, the two battalions they had been wiped out.
shell holes or made little holes to put ourselves in so that the machine guns
couldn’t hit us. We stayed there for the rest of the day could only recover to
our lines at night.
but Nivelle did not call a halt. A popular song emerged among the French troops
of the time the words said it all.
the song La Chanson de Craonne]
l'amour, Adieu toutes les femmes C'est bien fini, c'est pour toujours De cette
guerre infâme C'est à Craonne sur le plateau Qu'on doit laisser sa peau Car
nous sommes tous condamnés C'est nous les sacrifiés
women,
had it for good,
the plateau we’re leaving our skins,
been sentenced to die,
sacrificing,
seemed utterly dreadful. Furthermore there were these rumours of the Russian
Revolution and things weren’t looking at all good.
order to attack, mutinies soon spread.
were plenty of reasons for discontent, the painful failure of the Chemin de
Dames offensive, which had no result other than a dreadful slaughter. The prospect
of more long months of war, ahead with a highly dubious outcome, and finally
the long wait for home leave.
outside the village to form a Russian style Soviet composed of three men from
each company to take control of the regiment. To my amazement, they offered me
the presidency of the soviet; that is to say to replace the Colonel no less.
regiment. I refused as I had no wish to be tied to an execution post.
from both friend and foe.
officers attached to the French headquarters, and over a period of weeks the
French had managed to conceal any trouble from them. In a way perhaps it was fortunate,
because the Germans hadn’t heard either, if the Germans had then the war would
have been over.
to hear about the mutinies. He went to investigate himself.
French army that could be relied upon, between the front line and Paris. And I arrived
in part of the country near Soissons which I knew very well and there I was met
with the most amazing sight. Regiment after regiment was in open mutiny.
red rosettes, the officers were confined to a section of the village, had no
authority at all. And the men had established posts, I wasn’t in the least
molested, I asked what was going on? And got rather evasive answers, but in the
main found that the line taken by the men was that they were prepared to occupy
the line, but they weren’t prepared to fight. After what had happened, after
the bloodbath they’d been submitted to after all, one could understand their
point of view.
both officers and men- wrestled with how to react. Caught in the middle
sergeant Gaultier was ordered to lead a few men to halt a huge crowd of
mutinous soldiers from another regiment.
anywhere. But we shan’t go with bayonets on against French troops”. I looked at
the crowd, they were unarmed. One of them had a frying pan in one hand and a
poker in the other and was hitting it as hard as possible and he told me “come
on boys, we’ll go to Paris and throw grenades in the Palais Bourbon”.
that opinion, we had nothing to do we started talking, there were thousands
they were upset but they had nothing ferocious about them. But in the meantime
some machine guns had already been put in position. And they went back to their
quarters and the next day rains of lorries came and took them somewhere, I
never heard of them again.
took over and promised to improve conditions. Through force and deception the
most rebellious units were separated and purged. Thousands were arrested
hundreds sentenced to death, though only around 50 were actually executed. And in
time the mutinies petered out, units were returned to the line.
demonstrations took place. Shouting, singing, whistling, screaming and of
course the singing of the International. If the officers had made a gesture or
sad a word against this noise I sincerely believe they would have been
ruthlessly massacred, so high was the tension.
calm was restored, you cannot shout, whistle and scream forever. And there was
no leader among the rebels capable of making a decision or of giving us
direction. So we ended up heading towards the trenches although not without
grumbling or griping.
of launching huge offensives was over. It adopted a more defensive policy to
reduce the loss of life, but the sacrifices of the French soldier were to continue
for another year, by which time almost one and a half million were dead, more
than four million wounded. Losses that would profoundly shape France for
decades.
what’s remarkable was not that there was a mutiny but rather that it was so
rare.
that the struggle wasn’t hopeless? Who could blame for having lost faith in
their leadership?